


tiny bubbles in the wine, make me feel happy, make me feel fine

by lakeshoredive



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bathtubs, Everyone is alive because I said so, Fine Wine, Fluff, If You Squint - Freeform, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers - Freeform, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Not Old Man Steve, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Steve Rogers Is a Mess, and mission reports, but he's our mess, oops there's a bit of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-19 21:40:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19364542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lakeshoredive/pseuds/lakeshoredive
Summary: Then he notices the bathtub. The bathtub that has gone unused in the last four months he's lived in this apartment. He can't even remember the last time he took a bath. He was never particularly fond of them. Baths usually meant he was too sick or too weak to stand on his own. But there was something about the empty bathtub that looked immensely inviting. Warm water lapping over his skin, sinking into an abyss of comfort he hasn't felt in over 80 years.Yea.That could be nice.Or a bathtub introspection of one Steven Grant Rogers that no one asked for.





	tiny bubbles in the wine, make me feel happy, make me feel fine

**Author's Note:**

> Please drop a Kudo or a Comment or Both! if you're feeling zesty enough. Shoutout to the Bucky Protection Whores for helping me with the idea! Not beta'd because we die like men, so all mistakes are mine. I had a fun time writing this, but please give me the validation I crave. 
> 
> Title is taken from the song, "Tiny Bubbles" by Don Ho. It's a fun song I recommend a listen!

It occurrs to him, belatedly as he stands in the middle of his shared apartment with Bucky, that he might have wasted his entire semi-permanent four month retirement doing exactly what Sam had told him  _not_ to do. He's still in his gear from the mission, covered in soot and blood that isn't his. The adrenaline in his body is reaching a crescendo, singing the final screaming chorus of an eight minute song. He's aware that his mental state is reaching the _DANGER NOT OPERATIONAL_ levels of function.

This is why Sam's first official order as Captain America had been to force him into a retirement of sorts.    

This is what Sam had meant when he said to find coping mechanisms, not distractions. 

This is not what Steve had done. 

Steve had drawn and painted and  _created_ in ways that were distracting. And distracting is not dealing, according to Sam (and his own therapist). He feels a bit like an idiot as the realization hits him quick, closing in at all angles, that he has no idea what to do.

Bucky has already retreated to his room without so much as a single word. Bucky was smart. Bucky had  _learned_ what he really needed post mission, and that need arose in the form was being alone and mediating until his mind found peace. He had found out the hard way about his solitary demand. Bucky either had forgotten to lock his door, or simply assumed Steve would understand his unspoken wish to be left alone, so Steve had barged in, coming back from his run to find his best friend/brother in arms/contestant for longest standing crush award with the lights dimmed almost all the way, his eyes closed, and tears running silently down his cheeks. Bucky hadn't been happy. Steve had been horrified. The whole situation had been a mess as Steve nearly tripped over his own feet to shut the door because Bucky was yelling at him to  _get the fuck out._ It wasn't until the next morning, when they were both wearing matching crimson blushes that Bucky explained that he was okay, the crying was okay, that it was just his way of alleviating the tensions from the mission. 

_I just need to decompress you know how it is._

No, turns out, Steve doesn't know how it is because he all he had where distractions. 

He looks at the easel in the corner of the living room with a fresh canvas on it. He considers the paints, considers the smell, considers his trembling hands and decides against ruining the blank slate staring at him. The thought of trying to create after a mission set in destruction made his stomach clench tight. Tonight, these hands were not meant to catalyze. 

He takes a few calming breaths that don't do much to calm anything and tries to get his scrambled brain in some sense of order.  _Facts,_ he thinks,  _what are the facts._

The facts are this: 

1) They've been home for approximately twenty minutes, ten of which Steve has spent staring blankly at the wall of their shared living room. 

2) Bucky and Sam are both safe in their respective areas. 

3) Steve has completed his first mission since his semi-retirement and he's shaken. 

The mission itself wasn't horrible, not in the ways Steve has seen. But it had been a lone hydra base. There was chatter that they were trying to rebuild as the rest of the world was trying to rebuild. What better time to slip under the radar when everyone else was consumed by love and grief. It was their job to go check it out, destroy the base, take hydra agents in for questioning. It should have been easy enough. It was easy enough, until some hydra  _bastard_ started shouting old Winter Soldier trigger words in broken Russian as a last ditch effort. The words might not have had any physical affect, but Steve didn't miss Bucky's flinch at each word. Steve was ready to  _kill_ someone. There was a knife in his hand before he even realized what he was doing. 

It had taken Sam's firm grip on his arm to keep him in his spot.  _That_ was what had Steve so shaken. Never in his  _life_ had he had the urge to kill. Not really. Harm? Sure. Take down? Definitely? but murder? That was different. This wasn't a war, and he wasn't really a soldier anymore. He was supposed to be help. He was supposed to be backup. He was- 

A soft sigh catches his ear. Super hearing can be a blessing and a curse, he supposes. Bucky sighing means one of two things: he's either done with his mediation, or he knows Steve's been standing out in the middle of their apartment gaping at the wall like an idiot for ten minutes. It's not hard to guess which one is the more likely option. He doesn't want to disrupt him, not now anyway, so he shuffles into his own room with his plain off white walls and his plan gray bedding with the plain gray dresser in the corner of his room. He thinks it might be time to start making it  _his_ room. It has, after all been four months, going on five months he's lived here with Bucky, and Sam is down the hall. It would seem, for now, that he is staying where he is. 

He peels off his tactical suit methodically, piece by piece, layer by layer until he's in nothing other than his briefs. "Shower," he mutters. "Showers are good." He moves slowly, taking in every ache and pain he's beginning to feel. 

Four months he's been away from the action. 

Four months he's only found distractions. 

Four months and no decompression plan. 

But he has a shower. 

And that will have to do. 

X.X.X 

The problem is, it doesn't. The problem is he scrubs and scrubs and scrubs until his skin is raw, but the feeling of  _dirty_ doesn't go away. He tries to imagine scrubbing away the inclination of murder from his mind, tries to imagine letting the bad thoughts about doing Bad Things rinse down the drain with the soap suds, but it doesn't serve anything besides making him more agitated. He's not sure the meditation bullshit works for Bucky because it sure as shit doesn't work for him. 

He gets out of the shower feeling like a million taut rubber bands have replaced his skin. One wrong moved and  _snap_ he goes. So he stands-sans towel- desperately trying to find a way to unwind the coil that has wrapped itself around his brain. Perhaps he  _should_ give painting a try. But fuck his hands are still trembling and he doesn't even know what he would even attempt to put on the canvas. The idea of his hands creating something makes him physically recoil. 

His heart rate spikes a rhythmic  _thumpthumpthump_ and he's beginning to pant. 

Then he notices the bathtub. The bathtub that has gone unused in the last four months he's lived in this apartment. He can't even remember the last time he took a bath. He was never particularly fond of them. Baths usually meant he was too sick or too weak to stand on his own. But there was something about the empty bathtub that looked immensely inviting. Warm water lapping over his skin, sinking into an abyss of comfort he hasn't felt in over 80 years. 

Yea. 

That could be nice. 

He walks over to the tub, turning the faucet to his preferred temperature. He eyes the bubble bath, something Sam had gotten him as a kind of joke kind of serious moving in present, and decides  _fuck it_ what's a bath without bubbles. The water begins to rise and a generous amount of the soap has been poured in. Something about it is oddly familiar. He thinks of the sitcoms he and Bucky sometimes watch together. They’re stupid but they make Bucky smile so Steve doesn’t complain. Sometimes he draws the characters while Bucky lays with his head on his lap. Those days are his favorite.

One episode in particular, he can’t remember from what show, sticks out in his mind. He remembers a girl sitting in the bathtub, lights down low with a glass of wine in one hand and a book in the other.

He looks at the water, barely a quarter full, and thinks, _some wine might be nice too._ With a towel wrapped firmly around his waist, he heads for the kitchen where the wine rack is full of expensive bottles with expensive sounding names that Steve couldn’t be bothered with pronouncing even if he wanted to. He grabs the first one he sees, a red-  _Chateau Pontet-Canet_ 2015\. It was a gift from Tony as a house-warming gift. Not the wine bottle itself-no-the  _entire_ wine rack, with the parting words of,  _"Do yourself of favor and don't look into the cost of the wines, ex-Cap."_

_"I don't even like wine,"_ he had responded. Tony had huffed a small laugh, the kind of laugh you give someone when you know their bullshiting you. But Tony heard the  _Thank you_ for what it was, threw up a peace sign and called over his shoulder as he walked away, _"Come over to the cabin sometime. Morgan wants to know where Uncle Steve is."_

He hasn't been to the cabin, not since retiring. He makes a mental note to get over there within the next month. 

The wine glasses are perched, unused in the cabinet beside the wine rack. Steve hadn't really been kidding when he said he didn't like wine. He didn't like alcohol all that much in general, since it took ungodly (or godly depending on how you looked at it) amounts to get him anywhere near buzzed. And Bucky is more of a whiskey kind of guy. So the wine and wine glasses have gone unused. Until now. 

Now Steve has an aesthetic in his head that he intends to play out. And that aesthetic includes wine. And bubble baths apparently. 

Soft music, so soft Steve has to strain to hear it, emits from Bucky's room. It's classical, probably something from Chopin, if Steve had to guess. But that's all it is, is a guess because Steve doesn't know much about classical music. Steve is more a jazz fan himself. Bucky has _always_ , from the 30s until now, been drawn to classical music. It had been his ma that had introduced it to him. Steve was holed up in his room, fighting a nasty cold that gripped his lungs. It was the kind of cold that caused a worried furrow to his ma's brow. The type of cold that could develop into something worse at any given moment. One night, while Steve couldn't sleep with the coughing seizing his lungs, and Bucky couldn't go home because the storm outside had gotten too bad, Sarah had put on  _Aeolian Harp_ by Chopin, and Bucky had been gone on it ever since.

The idea came swift because _of course,_ he needs music. He slinks back into his room, wine in one hand, to grab the speaker-also a gift from Tony- and his phone, before turning into the bathroom to set up shop. He set the wine and speaker on a ledge next to the bathtub, shutting off the water that is now just a hint under the drain at the top of the tub designed to stop the water from spilling over when he gets in. He connects the bluetooth (yes, Tony, he does in fact know how to do that) and set his favorite jazz playlist. Smooth trumpets and piano filter through the room, the lights are dimmed, and steam is rising softly from the tub. Steve thinks this might be the calmest environment he's ever willing created for himself. 

Through the open bathroom door, he spies a dossier on his bedside table. It's for his next mission, coming up next week. He knows he probably shouldn't read it, having just come off a mission, but he also knows he'll get incredibly bored three minutes into his relaxation time. So he pads back into his room, swipes the file from the table, and pads back in.  

_Distractions_ he can hear Sam's voice in his head. He whisks them away with a physical wave of his hand.  _Baby steps._

He settles into the warm water with the file in one hand and a too full glass of wine in the other. 

And he loses himself just a bit. He sinks deeper into the water, the words on the pages aren't making much sense, but that's okay. His eyes skirt over the faces and names he'll need to commit to memory later. Steve is pretty sure the processing part of his brain has been shut off, instead, he's just  _living._

His eyes keep skimming the file, the glass gets refilled, and he continues to sip and sip and sip until he's refilling again and again and again. 

Each note from the speaker makes him float higher and higher. He wants to sink into the warmth of the water and never come out. The dim lighting is making his eyes heavy, the only part of his body being weighed down.  _Next time, I'm lighting candles._ He could imagine it, the soft aroma of vanilla filling the space and taking over the smell of blood and death. He nearly groans and wishes he had the forethought to bring scented candles. He hears lavender is supposed to be relaxing too. Maybe he can find a lavender  _and_ vanilla scented candle. 

There's a giggle that starts in his sternum and makes its way up his throat and out his mouth before he can stop it. Giddy excitement bubbles up inside him because  _he did this._ For himself. Serious Steve, stick-up-his-ass-Steve, managed to create a safe space for himself and himself only. There's a beauty somewhere in it. 

He stays in until the water gets cold, taking note at the lack of pruning in his skin, thanks to the serum. He gently pats down his body, relishing in the  _quiet_ of his mind. He has no troubles, no worries. 

In the morning, he'll wake slow. The sun will be peaking from behind the skyline. He'll be warm and sated and slide out of bed with an ease he's never felt before. He'll read a dossier with water stains obscuring some of the words, and wait for sounds of life coming from Bucky's room to make coffee, so his cup with be warm and ready when he stumbled from his room, brown hair a mess and sleep lines on his face. The morning will be still, save for the sounds of the city waking up, and Steve Rogers will finally shake hands with peace. 

But for now, he climbs into bed, and is asleep before his head hits the pillow. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own any of characters so I have no rights :)


End file.
